Between Policy and Practice: GenAI Adoption in Agile Software Development Teams

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Neumann, Michael, Bischof, Lasse, Hinz, Nic Elias, Stockmann, Luca, Schrader, Dennis, Ahaus, Ana Carolina, Demirci, Erim Can, Gabel, Benjamin, Rauschenberger, Maria, Diebold, Philipp, Fritzemeier, Henning, Przybylek, Adam
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Neumann, Michael
Bischof, Lasse
Hinz, Nic Elias
Stockmann, Luca
Schrader, Dennis
Ahaus, Ana Carolina
Demirci, Erim Can
Gabel, Benjamin
Rauschenberger, Maria
Diebold, Philipp
Fritzemeier, Henning
Przybylek, Adam
author_facet Neumann, Michael
Bischof, Lasse
Hinz, Nic Elias
Stockmann, Luca
Schrader, Dennis
Ahaus, Ana Carolina
Demirci, Erim Can
Gabel, Benjamin
Rauschenberger, Maria
Diebold, Philipp
Fritzemeier, Henning
Przybylek, Adam
contents Context: The rapid emergence of generative AI (GenAI) tools has begun to reshape various software engineering activities. Yet, their adoption within agile environments remains underexplored. Objective: This study investigates how agile practitioners adopt GenAI tools in real-world organizational contexts, focusing on regulatory conditions, use cases, benefits, and barriers. Method: An exploratory multiple case study was conducted in three German organizations, involving 17 semi-structured interviews and document analysis. A cross-case thematic analysis was applied to identify GenAI adoption patterns. Results: Findings reveal that GenAI is primarily used for creative tasks, documentation, and code assistance. Benefits include efficiency gains and enhanced creativity, while barriers relate to data privacy, validation effort, and lack of governance. Using the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, we find that these barriers stem from misalignments across the three dimensions. Regulatory pressures are often translated into policies without accounting for actual technological usage patterns or organizational constraints. This leads to systematic gaps between policy and practice. Conclusion: GenAI offers significant potential to augment agile roles but requires alignment across TOE dimensions, including clear policies, data protection measures, and user training to ensure responsible and effective integration.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_07051
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Between Policy and Practice: GenAI Adoption in Agile Software Development Teams
Neumann, Michael
Bischof, Lasse
Hinz, Nic Elias
Stockmann, Luca
Schrader, Dennis
Ahaus, Ana Carolina
Demirci, Erim Can
Gabel, Benjamin
Rauschenberger, Maria
Diebold, Philipp
Fritzemeier, Henning
Przybylek, Adam
Software Engineering
Context: The rapid emergence of generative AI (GenAI) tools has begun to reshape various software engineering activities. Yet, their adoption within agile environments remains underexplored. Objective: This study investigates how agile practitioners adopt GenAI tools in real-world organizational contexts, focusing on regulatory conditions, use cases, benefits, and barriers. Method: An exploratory multiple case study was conducted in three German organizations, involving 17 semi-structured interviews and document analysis. A cross-case thematic analysis was applied to identify GenAI adoption patterns. Results: Findings reveal that GenAI is primarily used for creative tasks, documentation, and code assistance. Benefits include efficiency gains and enhanced creativity, while barriers relate to data privacy, validation effort, and lack of governance. Using the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, we find that these barriers stem from misalignments across the three dimensions. Regulatory pressures are often translated into policies without accounting for actual technological usage patterns or organizational constraints. This leads to systematic gaps between policy and practice. Conclusion: GenAI offers significant potential to augment agile roles but requires alignment across TOE dimensions, including clear policies, data protection measures, and user training to ensure responsible and effective integration.
title Between Policy and Practice: GenAI Adoption in Agile Software Development Teams
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.07051